University of Illinois Extension Champaign County- Summer Library Programs

     This summer as one of my intern projects I am working on the SPIN Club Summer Library Programs. One of my supervisors created the idea for "Baa, Moo, Quack...Let's Learn About Agriculture" before I started working at Extension. She left me with the general idea for the program, but asked me to create the lesson plans and activities for each day.

Cows & Horses Lesson- Philo Library

     Over the summer I am traveling to libraries in Philo, Tolono, Rantoul, and Ogden to do 7 weeks of 1 hour agricultural programs to kids from ages 8 and up, the number of kids per each session varies from 3 kids all the way up to 20, we expect to be growing in numbers each week as the program becomes more popular. Upon my first week of interning I started creating the lesson plans for what the children would learn about each week. Topics that I had to create lessons for included Introduction to Animals and Agriculture, Cows and Horses, Pigs, Goats, and Sheep, Poultry, Small Animals, and Agricultural Careers.

     I spent my time in the office constructing what I wanted the kids to learn about for each of these topics as well as created experiential learning activities to start each lesson with, and then implemented hands-on activities for each child to give them a chance to interact with the topics I presented on. Some of our weekly lessons even include live animals being brought to the libraries.

Intro to Agriculture Lesson- Philo Library

     After I had all of the content for each topic comprised, I then had to go and meet with each librarian to finalize plans. This led to another week of editing and perfecting my lessons so that they were in their best form by the first week of programs. The second part of my project for "Baa, Moo, Quack...Let's Learn About Agriculture" is to actually deliver the lessons. My supervisor is initially helping me lead these programs so that I can learn how to be an efficient teacher. The following weeks of these programs I will be left to present on my own. These programs follow the same format as most AITC (agriculture in the classroom) presentations. My former experience with AITC has helped to prepare me on how to best present the topic information to the children. I am now in my second week of presentations and I am so excited to be carrying out this project.